Former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd), former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali H. Major (Retd) and former defence secretary NN Vohra were among the experts debating the theaterisation process.
In a demonstration of integration possibilities between Army & IAF, a Para commando, his colleagues & IAF pilots rescued 10 stranded cable car passengers in Himachal in 1992.
CDS Gen Bipin Rawat laid claims to superiority on behalf of the Army, because he believes it is ultimately all about control of territory. This mindset needs to be disparaged.
The Air Force, in theatre command set-up, must have an overriding lien over the resources that may be allocated to other theatres on as required basis.
CDS Gen Rawat labels IAF as supporting arm to ground forces — likening it to roles of artillery, engineers in Army. But ACM Bhadauria says air power has a huge role to play in battle areas.
The grave diggers of the theatre command system have won the current round and the political leadership has failed to discern the nature of the issues.
It seems India is in a hurry to establish theatre commands without having the concept clear. Not just the IAF, all stakeholders need to first assess their assets.
The Press in a liberal democracy has to be a forum for the expression of different points of view. It must not suppress, taint or adulterate news, wrote Sachin Sen in 1960.
Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil behemoth, has large interests in India. Reliance has a contract to purchase 500,000 barrels of crude per day from the firm.
Fresh details of operation conducted by IAF, Army have come out in gazette notification giving citations of those who were awarded Vir Chakra for their bravery.
On 21 Oct, a buzz went up that the govt had released full list of gallantry award recipients along with Op Sindoor citations. I put an AI caddy on the job. It took me into a never-ending rabbit hole.
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